The present invention relates to containers for storing, serving or drinking cooled liquids, and particularly to sport bottle containers.
Containers have long been used storing, serving or drinking liquids. Liquids can be cooled by freezing the liquid or adding ice, but some containers have included cold packs, freeze packs or phase change material packs to keep liquid in the container cooled. Examples include U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,840,153, 5,009,083, 5,129,238, 5,456,090, 5,507,156, 6,494,056, 6,584,800, 6,761,041, 6,938,436 and 7,051,550, all incorporated by reference. However, none of these various designs provide an optimal solution for keeping the liquid in the container cold.
Some of these containers include the phase change material in the peripheral walls of the container. While this is a solution that rapidly cools the liquid added inside the container, it also tends to take up more space in the freezer, and leaves an exposed outer surface of the container which is quite cold for handling the container and may “sweat” or have significant condensation problems on the outside of the container during use.
Some of these containers include a straw or drinking opening which is unbalanced relative to the freeze pack, having either or both the drinking opening and the freeze pack offset relative to a central axis of the container. See for instance U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,840,153 and 5,129,238. The big advantage to such an offset arrangement is that the attachment mechanism for the freeze pack can be designed entirely separate and without concern for the drinking opening. It is generally preferred however, to provide a uniform balanced feel to the container, both during drinking (which requires the drinking opening to be centered in the container) and during handling such as when the container is only partially full (which requires the freeze pack to be centered in the container).
The containers disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,009,083 and 5,507,156 center both the freeze pack and the straw/drinking opening in the center of the container by having the straw centered in an annular freeze pack, but the annular shape of the freeze pack is overly complicated and expensive to manufacture. The containers disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,456,090, 6,494,056 and 6,584,800 center both the freeze pack and the drinking opening but have a relatively flimsy (and unnecessarily complicated) attachment arrangement for the freeze pack. The container can be treated roughly (such as when thrown from one consumer to another), and the freeze pack should have a simple, robust attachment mechanism to keep it in the center of the beverage container. Better designs for containers having freeze packs therein are needed.